S1:Ep5: AI Is Not Just a Tool: Why This Tech Wave Challenges Our Purpose

I'm seeing 3 different types of groups of people reacting to AI. The first group are people who are raising ethical concerns. The second group are people who are resisting altogether. And the third group are people who are concerned about the energy it uses and the impact on our planet.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Welcome to AI with Bri, the podcast where we explore how to learn, leverage, and lead with AI. I'm your host, Brian Denstad, and if you're curious about how AI intersects with leadership, creativity, and human connection, you're in for a real treat today. Joining me today is Virginie Glenzer, a dynamic voice in conscious leadership, human behavior, and innovation strategy. Virginie is a fractional CMO advisor and founder who blends deep business acumen with a commitment to human-first leadership. She's also the host of Pass the Mic podcast, so check that one out, and where she creates space for thought-provoking conversations. Today we're gonna explore how Virginie is navigating this AI-powered era with intention, curiosity, and care. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Thank you very much, Brian. I'm excited to be part of this conversation.

Likewise, I've had a few conversations with some other people at Tech CXO where, where we work, and it's so amazing. They both, they both have mentioned you. So that's where I like, you're definitely imparting some cool wisdom into some other people at, at our, our company here. So I'm just curious, like, I wanna start with the learn segment and really talk to us about how you have been figuring out which AI tool to play with. Cuz like 12 of them came out while I said that sentence and like what one are you learning the most about? And tell us about what some of the stuff you've learned on AI lately.

And I think what you just did is a disclaimer, right? We had to start with a reality check. Yes. That is, anything that we say about AI today might be outdated just in a few months.

Yes.

So for the listeners, whenever you're listening to this, be mindful about how fast things change. So thank you for your question. I think I feel that I need to bring some context because depending on who you talk to about AI, I think it's important to understand the filter to really understand the answers. So as a CMO, I am first and foremost a tech nerd at heart.

Yes.

I spent 17 years in Silicon Valley. I'm married to a CTO and I'm really genuinely thriving on change. And then what's interesting is that with 20 years of digital transformation under my belt, AI initially felt like just another technology wave in the tech evolution. That's really how I felt it initially. But here's the truth: AI is not just another tool. And even though we'll, we'll talk about tool, I think it's really more a radical societal disruption, right? Not only because it's automating and removing many jobs. And we've seen that in the past, you know, think of the industrial revolution of the 1900s or even in the '70s. Yeah, in the '70s with the rise of computers, there was a lot of jobs that died and new ones that got created. But what I've come to realize is that this radical disruption is mostly because it challenges how much, a much deeper foundation. The role of human purpose and the meaning of life. So we'll see if we go into that direction. But I think because we've built a world where meaning is tied to our work and our ability to collaborate, you know, after all, a job allowed us to build a family, to be independent, find comfort, travel, you know, have a good life. But today, if you look at the business at its core, it's human-centered. Systems.

Yes.

People are the creators and the operators. So when you remove people using AI, you're left with an idea. There's no execution, no impact. So what happens when businesses shift towards AI agent-centered systems? So we're not just changing how we work, we're changing why we work.

Yes. So I think—

I thought I would— that's my context.

Yeah, that's a core fundamental thing. I agree. I feel like that's a whole That's a whole separate episode. I love to have you back on and unpack the bigger picture of it, of it for sure. So with that context that you set so well, what are you seeing on this learning front? Like, how are you embracing the learning and unpacking some of these tools that are changing so rapidly?

Yeah. So when I look at the way that I've embraced AI and still trying to adapt and the way that my clients are also using AI, I feel that there's three phases. The first phase, and depending on where, what kind of job you have or where you live, you might be in phase 1, 2, or 3. The first phase is it's all about going faster and doing more. So as a fractional CMO, I use AI to do things that I couldn't do in the past. It could be, you know, by myself, I would have to rely on some other people, copy editing, idea generation, market research, data analysis, all these Task can be done now much faster by myself instead of again pulling other resources. Phase 2 is about better. It's no longer faster, but it's better. And that really is about elevating the quality of the strategic work. So I'm going to give you an example. I'm working with a client who's launching a new SaaS. And of course, as a strategic marketer, I need to know How's the market opportunities? So I need to do market research and a product-market fit.

Yeah.

And so not to get too deep into this AI approach, but what I was able to do is to use AI to triangulate a market launch strategy. So I've used survey to listen to what customers say about themselves. I run a keyword analysis and use social media to analyze, to track what they search when no one is watching. But I also, and that's the third element, I've used AI. So I was able to listen to what the industry believes about those prospects. And what I did is I took the session titles and description from major industry conferences. And from there, I extrapolated the questions that speakers were actually answering with their topics. And then I reverse engineer what they believed the audience cared about, you know, the challenges that they assumed the audiences had or faced. So that was a way to elevate the quality of my strategic work using AI.

Absolutely.

And then just the third step is job change. And we're not just getting a new tool, we're getting new roles, new workflows, new team dynamics. And actually, I'm still trying to figure out that phase myself.

Yeah, I think, I think we all are. And it's so interesting because I have a couple of clients as well. And I think that's a really interesting use case that's probably not spoken about a lot in this, in this learning segment here to use AI to generate these personas. Like it's not just like the, the cooler search engine now and you can ask it some questions and there's some cooler tools to transcribe stuff or, or do some homework for you. It's, it's you flipping the script around saying, I want you to be a 42-year-old Native American that has such and such disease or whatever and come back to me with this reaction to this marketing thing. Like, that's just so, so powerful, right? So you can, you can generate 4 or 5 audiences or a huge number of audiences and get that feedback so, so well. And I'm right there with you because I'm so on this cutting edge of AI for sure. But I do— I guess it's one of those things like when I, when I go out into the community, you know, this event with the kids or something, I see people not really using it or not really talking about it. So I don't know if it's just me as a CTO or you as a CMO in this role. Like we see it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week kind of thing. I don't see the masses going towards it as much and as fast as you and I are. But I certainly agree with you that the future of work is going to change 100% in the next— my guess is 3 to 5 years. So it's going to happen really fast.

Yesterday I was at the AI Expo in DC, a free event where technology companies were presenting anything from, you know, software, SaaS, to flying, what do you call, drones.

Yeah.

And I ask people, you know, how do you use AI? And absolutely like you just said, a lot of them were trying to catch up, were trying to see how do I use it. But I've also spoken to a couple of people who were 100% like me using it.

Yes.

And again, having spent so much time in Silicon Valley, it makes you on the cutting edge of technology, but that doesn't represent the overall population. There's always a gap. But there was one software engineer and he was like, I'm using it all the time to code. I no longer code. It's pretty impressive when I know that a lot of software engineers are still very reluctant to using AI. And we can talk about actually, since you bring that up, if you allow me, I'd love to share 3 key trends in AI adoption that I've seen.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it kind of shifts us into this leverage segment that we're about to embark on is like, you know, talk to us about how you see your companies and the people you're working with really leverage and put into place AI. And I think that goes to probably what you're about to talk about. So hit us with it.

I'd be interested to know if you see those three trends. So I'm seeing three different types of groups of people reacting to AI. The first group of, or people who are raising ethical concerns. It's quite small, but I've heard them. And I'm the same. I do raise ethical concern about building organizations that have, you know, 5 people and generating $5 billion. Like, what kind of culture, what kind of society are we going? So they, these groups really recognize that AI is more about power than knowledge.

Yes.

Versus internet back in the '90s or the 2000s, it was about knowledge. Yeah.

Right.

That's the first group. The second group are people who are resisting altogether because they fear that it will lead them to become intellectually obsolete and it will erode their independent thinking and their ability to create. And I've seen that more from European countries of people who are questioning, and, you know, the long-term impact on themselves. Like, if I start getting into a habit of using AI for every time that I need it, I'm not thinking anymore. What does that do to my own ability? So that's the second group. And the third, and maybe that's a smaller, although, this third group are people who are concerned about the energy it uses and the impact on our planet. Just yesterday night, my daughter was saying that when you use please and thank you, when you address the ChatGPT or whatever LLM you're using, it uses energy. And the CEO, I think it was the CEO of Gemini, was saying, don't say please and thank you because it's another glass of water. And we all have conflicting information about, you know, is this really using water? How much? Should we be concerned, et cetera? But there's a really big, a third group of people who are very much concerned. So that's, do you see the same type of—

I absolutely do. I do think the ethic question has come up in a few conversations of it's something we need to think about and toe the line correctly. Like especially the people that we were just talking about with the persona generation, right? Like you want to make sure that we're building the right personas, but we know inherently that the AI has been built by a certain type of persona already. So it already has these biases. You know, if you look at from my perspective, I'm vegan and AI has a huge bias towards eating meat still, right? Like, I mean, that's just a cultural thing that ripples through our society on every level. So it's really, really interesting to see these dynamics and see how it ripples into it. So I totally agree with you. The ethics is a big thing. And then, even some of the new tools I see with MCP and A2A protocols rolling out, those are really focusing on, in my head as a CTO, the security concerns. When one of my employees connects his email to an MCP and then the AI has free rein on every email in his mailbox, like that's a huge security piece. So I would probably add that as a, as a fourth one is the security knowledge escaping the silos that it shouldn't be escaping. As a concern too. One of my favorite series on Netflix was from a few years back called Altered Carbon. And you know, out of whether it's Star Wars, Star Trek, or all these other futuristic movies, Altered Carbon, I fear unfortunately, is the one that we're headed to very, very fast about how the ultra-wealthy will never die, right? And the power will just continue to grow and And then we may have, you know, Elon Musks of the world controlling entire planets as it goes. So we'll see how the future goes, but it's very much so going to happen rapidly on that front. Is there any other ways that you have been, you know, working with teams to leverage and enhance? Like, I guess to me, I think of the CMO arm of a business very much so as the creative arm. Like, you have to come up with the way to get these people into the fold and get them interested in talking to sales and figuring out the— helping drive the roadmap for what the IT people need to build, etc. I see AI helping unlock and accelerate creativity, almost ushering in a new Renaissance era to a degree. How are you seeing your teams leveraging creativity, communication, strategy in that regard?

Um, so very much like you, you know, you described, uh, as a CMO, it's a lot of marketers are using, uh, AI with copy editing. So anything around storytelling, um, persona, market research, data exploration, but also brainstorming. So using video or images, coming up with, um, unique ways to tell a better story. Yeah, we have to remember that when it's AI that creates the content, the content is not— we cannot copyright the content. So we're losing ownership. And then I did a webinar not too long ago on how to use AI in marketing without putting ourselves at the risk of infringement. Competitive intelligence at scale is the second piece that I've seen. And that comes from SaaS or small startups launching SaaS that allows you, for example, to create or to craft AI messages at scale based on the individuals. And then strategic planning with really a level of insight that I wouldn't gather manually. So that's how I've used it with some of the teams that I work with. I've also seen some of my clients using it. For example, with one client, their tech team is using lovable.ai to design and iterate on landing pages, and it makes it so fast, so much faster. So we're kind of removing the design part because that's what they— so we could— I mean, it's— I think it depends on the maturity of the company. If it's a small company and you're really trying to to throw things on the wall using all those tools is fine. If you're a more mature company with an established brand, I would always recommend to have people within them, you know, mixed in with AI tools. So even if you're using lovable.ai to go from a story to a landing page, to have a designer look at it because there's a perception and an ability, you know, some people see with their eyes differently. And then yes, at Tech CXO, because we have so many other fractional executive partners that we work with, I've seen some of them testing AI-driven CRM workflows. I'm also exploring myself N8N, which allows to have a design of one agent speaking to other agents. The frustration for marketers is that this entire tech industry has been designed by engineers, so everything is made way more complicated than it could actually be. So I have to have engineers and, you know, help from other tech people to actually create an AI workflow.

Yeah.

But it's been quite— I think more and more people are using it.

I would say I'm curious, like, I've played with— I don't know, I play with all the tools. I probably play with 10 tools a day right now for 2 minutes each just to see, does it have legs or not? Or Can I offer this to a client that would be a good fit? And it's the question, like the two that I've stumbled across that I think are super early, but you can get in at some really rock bottom prices right now are Sintra AI. And then the other one I came across was Marbleism. And they both have this concept of the AI agent employee. And so you, you log in, you sign up and you get the, you get the blog writer, you get the social media expert, you get the marketing review person, you get the customer support person, and you spend the time to connect them to your email, to connect them to your social feeds. And then they'll come and say, hey, I think we should write a blog about one of these 3 topics. Which one do you like? Cool. Comes back 10 minutes later. Hey, I wrote the blog. Do you like it? Cool. Let me generate the images. Cool. Which one? Which image do you like? Great. Click here and let's publish the blog and let's post to social media all without you having to do anything other than give it a couple threads to run with. So I do think that's where it's going to go. We're going to evolve past this N/A/N level where you need us computer nerds to help you. So really, really exciting stuff.

Right. And we'll be also able to use very quickly AI in our personal lives. You know, opening up our bank account or medical record and it's— there's going to be some issue to fix. But I think that's also another area that we're going to see. You know, you won't spend time browsing or looking to buy paper towels online. Your AI agent will do it for you at the best price.

That's right. Yeah. We'll be putting a camera in our pantry and in our cupboards so it knows when you run out of something. Right.

I'm moving in a few months. And so I'm trying to find a moving company, which means looking at websites, filling out forms, getting calls. And if I had an AI agent that would have assessed, you know, everything that I have in my house and do that work, how much time would I be saving?

Yeah, that's so true. There's a whole business right there. Take pictures of every room and I'll tell you how many boxes you need and how big of a truck. Yeah, that's phenomenal.

And then finding, you know, going and getting quotes, the best quote.

Yeah, for sure.

Giving me the top 2 quotes of the most reliable companies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, our last segment is really the leadership side of it. And I think this is where you and I excel and have a small leg up because we are probably both old enough to remember working pre-internet with the internet and this knowledge base and now AI. How are you working to really lead the teams, the people that are doing some of the heavy lifting for us through this AI transformation?

So I actually recently wrote a book on the evolution of digital transformation to AI, Lessons from 25 Years on the Frontline, and how to help people because we look at AI as a technology, but really technology is about people. It's not just tool. So helping individual, whether it's in your team or partners, embrace change, which is what we're talking about, and we're humans resistant to change. It's just how we were built. It's about removing blockages and simplifying change. So eliminating any barriers, simplifying the process would be the first step. The second step is to involve and empower the people because very often I see organizations imposing and having taken a lot of time to do the due diligence and choosing. So there's a lot of work that came to, we selected this tool and here's how we're going to improve your work. But if, if you don't involve people, there's going to create some sort of resistance. So finding opportunity for team members to co-create solutions. You know, like if you're developing an AI roadmap or proof of concept, it's really important to involve everyone who's going to be affected so they can provide their input. And then I would say the third thing is to celebrate success. You know, it's really building people's confidence Every milestone, every individual contribution should be said and noticed. And if there's failures, this is an opportunity to learn. I think that's—

I want to ask a follow-up on that because we're in this post-COVID world where I feel like we've lost this ability for this water cooler banter and stuff like that. And it's this is all brand new for all of us, right? I mean, everybody has to learn this, has to learn crafting the right prompt and giving it more feedback and more data or whatever. And, and I think it's, it's almost like learning to walk or ride a bike again for so many people of like, we've got to set them up to fail a few times or we've got to get them to say it's okay, I failed at this. Or like, how are you guiding them through this? This learning failure process to get better and better at it as you're rolling this out. I know that's one of the things I'm struggling with is like, here's the tool, we've got it blast, you've signed the agreement. You know, we— you can stop using your personal ChatGPT subscription you paid for, use the company one. Let's keep all of our data inside the company, please. But now go, go and break stuff, go trip over it a few times and figure out your path use it. How are you advising people on that?

Well, I think it's about the ego. Like, the sense of failure comes from the ego. So as soon as you start co-creating instead of asking people to do it on their own, which will require the individual to be someone who wants to take a risk, and no one wants to take— very few people thrive on change. Most people like comfort and, you know, reassurance. But if you put team— and actually, back in 2010, when I was in Silicon Valley, growth hacking was kind of the buzzword of the time. And growth hacking just meant putting a growth hacking team together, which was a designer, a product marketing, a sales individual, and a digital marketer. You put them together, even though they were not from the same department, and you let them work on a project. And that really, diversity allowed the team to be better, to be more agile. And it's interesting what you're asking because it actually, there's a thought that comes to my mind and maybe that's going to be the last few words that I want to leave people with. But, you know, I was raised in France, so, and I was very good at philosophy, so I learned to question and challenge the status quo, which is why as a fractional CMO, I love this world, this work, because I can question. It's much easier to question from the outside than if you're in an organization. But when I look at AI, I cannot help but think that the social fabrics of businesses are being redefined, right? And so our challenge is how do we keep humans at the center of purpose even if they're no longer at the center of the process. You mentioned Cintra. Cintra is creating digital employees. So, you know, you're really in the Matrix here. And I think a lot of people really feel that we're living through an era where becoming obsolete feels like a threat.

Yeah.

Whether you are a truck driver whose truck is going to be autonomous very soon to a marketer who, you know, the strategy is gonna be created by an AI agent. But I think that you'll have a—

And I just feel like you have to look back 100 years ago. I mean, we had an enormous amount of people farming, an enormous amount of people washing clothes by hand. All of those jobs have disappeared. And like, that's where I just say like, I'm trying to showcase to the people that are working with me on these teams that your job— this is a chance for you to almost reinvent yourself. You're going to get to learn something new. You're going to get to pursue a new passion, whatever that is that you want to go after in a big way. Like, think of this as a moment to almost be reborn and go after— like, I've always wanted to paint. You'll have a whole bunch more time to paint now.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So the real power really lies in learning how to co-evolve with technology. And the question isn't whether AI will change the game. It already has. The real question is how will we show up in this new game?

Yes.

That's what you're saying.

Yes.

How do you want to reinvent yourself?

Yeah. And I think as leaders, the only other thing that I try to do is to show that I don't know everything. Like, I'm, I'm maybe 3 months ahead of you on your, your AI journey, right, on that front. So the question is really, I want to just share my screen and let's do that prompt together. And it didn't work. I failed. Like, I'm not the expert just because I'm the CTO here. Like, I've shared my screen, I show you it failed, but let's go try this in a different AI or let's try to recreate the prompt, or let's have it do some deep research and come back with some ideas to unlock the problem. But we have to problem solve and trouble step through it together, basically. And I think that's an important thing for us as leaders to demonstrate how to learn or embrace change on that front.

I always say to everyone that the more I learn, the less I know. And I think that's my way of realizing that in a changing world, being adaptable is way more valuable than being efficient. And this is actually the theory of a French research biologist. His name is Olivier Hamann, and he works at the Michel Serres Institute, which explores the relationship between humanity and nature. And he really is trying to raise the concern that we often talk about AI as a force for productivity and efficiency, but there's a hidden risk in only chasing performance instead of robustness, you know, the ability to maintain function during fluctuation like this, the adaptability. And he gives some examples that, you know, the Suez Canal blockage, that when one single ship stopped the entire global trade for days, that was something that happened because there was a lack of robustness. The Windows crash that was, I think, came from an update of CrowdStrike. Yeah, yeah. You know, it disrupted banks and hospitals and airports. And he says, if you look at nature, Nature doesn't optimize, it evolves.

Yeah.

And so that's when we use AI, we need to build, you know, system with robustness in mind. So having diverse data sources, redundant system for protection, and maybe human-in-the-loop design.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I just love that. I mean, You're clearly demonstrating that leading with AI doesn't just mean the technical side of it. It means, you know, really bringing the human back into this equation. And we've had a few other people on the podcast at this point, and they've all been on the technical side with me. So I just love your perspective that you've been able to share with us today as a CMO and as obviously a person who's thought a whole bunch about how this is is gonna change our society in major ways. So thank you.

And I have more questions than answers.

Yes, me too, me too. That's why I'm doing the podcast. I wanna spark these questions and try and unpack them for us to all think about. So, Virginia, thank you so much for such a thoughtful and grounded conversation. You're helping us really see AI not just as a tool, but almost a mirror reflecting how we want to lead and live, I hope. So thank you for being here. How do people get that book or check out your podcast or get in touch with you? Let us know.

Yeah, and thank you so much, Brian, for hosting this conversation that are really essential, I think. And I'm an open book. I can be found on LinkedIn. I used to be very involved in Twitter and I kind of pushed it aside. So I'm on LinkedIn and I have a few books on Amazon. The last one is The Economy of Abundance. I actually challenge the idea of scarcity, which is how our entire society and financial system and economy was built on when we in fact live in a world of abundance.

We do. I love it. Well, I'll make sure I get those links from you. We'll pop those in the show notes so everybody can click in and get in touch with you directly. For those that are listening and watching, don't forget to follow the show. That's the best way to let us know that you like this and leave us a review. Share this episode with some friends or maybe somebody who's rethinking their role in this AI era and let us know who else you want to have on the podcast soon because we would love to help try and track them down and spark some of those conversations. So don't forget to check out Virginie's LinkedIn and her podcast, Past the the mic. Again, those will be in the show notes. Until next time, everybody, keep learning, keep leading, and the future doesn't wait. This episode of AI with Bry was hosted and produced by me, Brian Denstedt, produced with help from Nancy Velasquez and Kelly Lopez, video by Leo Morellina, sound AI-generated. Find us on all platforms at AI with BRI and visit ai.bri.net for more. Learn, leverage, lead.